God Tempers the Wind to the Shorn Lamb
God Tempers the Wind to the Shorn Lamb by Mogens; Linder, Marc Klitgaard
English | 2002 | ISBN: 0967389984 | 185 Pages | PDF | 5 MB
English | 2002 | ISBN: 0967389984 | 185 Pages | PDF | 5 MB
A . . . sturdy vagabond . . . shall at the first time be whipped, and sent to the place where he was bom or last dwelled . . ., there to get his living; and if he continue his roguish life, he shall have the upper part of the gristle of his right ear cut off; and if after that he be taken wandering in idleness, or doth not apply to his labour, or is not in service with any master, he shall be adjudged and executed as a felon.
This tale of a young Dane’s life as a vagabond in post-World War I Europe is, more or less, the true story of Mogens Klitgaard from the age of sixteen to his mid-twenties. Ironically, the laudatory review of the Danish original in the Times Literary Supplement failed to understand its autobiographical character; instead, the anonymous reviewer mistakenly believed that the book focused on a “tramp, whom the author meets . . . and whose confidence he wins by standing him a meal.”3 In fact, the author is the tramp and the man who buys him coffee merely a stage prop.